Ginseng Roots: A Memoir (Hardcover)

(W/A) Craig Thompson. From the celebrated author of Blankets and Habibi comes a new graphic memoir exploring the class divide* childhood labor* family* and our globalized world all centered on Wisconsin's ginseng farming industry "A sweeping story* gorgeously drawn and beautifully told this is Craig Thompson's masterpiece." Joe Sacco* author of Palestine and Paying the Land When Blankets first published in 2003* Craig Thompson's seminal memoir about first love and faith lost in rural Wisconsin debuted to rapturous acclaim. The winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards* it is to this day considered one of the all-time great works of graphic storytelling. Now* in Craig's long-awaited return to the autobiographical form* comes the story that Blankets left out. Ginseng Roots follows Craig and his siblings* who spent the summers of their youth weeding and harvesting rows of coveted American ginseng on rural Wisconsin farms for one dollar an hour. In his trademark breathtaking pen-and-ink work* Craig interweaves this lost youth with the 300-year-old history of the global ginseng trade and the many lives it has tied together from ginseng hunters in ancient China* to industrial farmers and migrant harvesters in the American Midwest* to his own family still grappling with the aftershocks of the bitter past. Stretching from Marathon* Wisconsin* to Northeast China* Ginseng Roots charts the rise of industrial agriculture* the decline of American labor* and the search for a sense of home in a rapidly changing world.